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A  COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS 
BEFORE  THE  *  B  K  SOCIETY  OF  VASSAE  COLLEGE 

JUNE  8,  1903 


« 


THE  THING  TO  DO 


BY 


WHITELAW  REID 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/commenmentaddresOOreidrich 


A  COMMENCEMENT  ADDEESS 
BEFORE  THE  ^  B  K  SOCIETY  OF  VASSAR  COLLEGE 

JUNE  8,  1903 


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THE  THING  TO  DO 


BY 

WHITELAW  REID 


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NEW  YORK 

PRINTED  FOR  THE  VASSAR  CHAPTER  OF 

THE  4>  B  K  SOCIETY 

1903 


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THE  THING  TO   DO 

PHI  BETA  KAPPA  ADDRESS  AT  VASSAR  COLLEGE 


Befoee  one  word  on  the  theme  which  has  been  announced,  I 
want  to  express  my  grateful  remembrance  of  the  fact  that  this  is 
the  second,  if  not  the  third,  successive  year  in  which  I  have  been 
invited  to  Vassar.  Let  me  add  the  earnest  hope  that  you  may 
not  repent  of  it  before  the  evening  is  over,  and  conclude  from  this 
experience  that,  however  it  may  be  with  a  woman,  it  is  always  a 
mistake  to  give  a  man  more  than  one  chance  to  say  Yes. 

The  brilliant  President  of  a  great  California  University  has  de- 
fined Wisdom  as  "  Knowing  What  to  Do  Next,'^  and  Virtue  as 
"  Doing  It."  Responding  to  the  call  with  which  the  young  ladies 
of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  have  honored  me,  I  shall  try  to  merit  your 
attention  by  speaking  to  you  for  a  little  of  "  The  Thing  to  Do." 
In  proportion,  then,  to  any  success  in  saying  the  right  word  to  you 
on  this  subject,  that  word  must  come,  however  unworthy  the 
voice  through  which  it  speaks,  as  the  counsel  of  Wisdom  and  the 
command  of  Virtue. 

The  universal  inquiry  in  the  graduating  class  on  Commence- 
ment Day  is,  What  next  ?  The  mere  man  has  no  monopoly  of  it. 
The  girl  graduate  too  is  absorbed  in  questions  about  what  she 
shall  do.  Misty  visions  float  before  her  eyes.  Now,  as  always,  the 
vague  outlines  are  apt  to  shape  themselves,  to  the  first  gaze  alike 
of  the  simplest  and  of  the  wisest,  into  happy  homes  and  home 
responsibilities.  But  in  these  days  of  broader  horizons,  many 
another  purpose  in  life  comes  in  to  enlarge  or  to  confuse  the  pic- 
ture. Whether  with  the  home  or  without  a  home,  comes  the 
thought  of  a  career  worthy  of  the  capacities  here  discovered,  the 
training  here  given ;  perhaps  a  literary,  or  artistic  or  scientific 
career,  perhaps  educational  or  professional,  perhaps  reformatory, 
perhaps  social :  but  always  a  career,  always  the  desire  for  a  sphere 
in  which  to  exercise  the  proper  power  of  the  trained  abilities  and 
enjoy  their  rightful  influence,  always  the  resolve  to  do  something. 


239465 


4  THE  THING  TO  DO 

Let  us  first  see  now  if  there  is  not  one  especial  thing  which,  in  any 
career  and  whatever  else  may  or  may  not  be  done,  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  girl  graduate  to  attempt,  in  her  respective  sphere  and  to 
the  full  measure  of  her  capacity. 

"The  It  ^as  sixty-five  years  ago  that  a  singularly  acute  French  ob- 

Dem" Tacy"  server  pronounced  the  legal  profession  the  most  conservative  ele- 
ment in  this  country,  and  the  greatest  safeguard  against  the 
excesses,  as  he  called  them,  of  Democracy.  But  the  intervening 
two-thirds  of  a  century  have  shown  many  changes.  We  have 
seen  no  political  craze,  from  secession  to  the  payment  of  national 
debts  in  fiat  money  or  in  silver,  no  popular  delusion,  from  spirit 
portraits  to  communism  or  to  the  right  of  some  laborers  to  pro- 
hibit free  labor,  that  has  not  been  led  by  lawyers;  and  we  have 
seen  no  depth  of  degradation  to  which,  in  pursuit  of  a  fee,  some 
members  of  this  profession  have  not  descended,  and  that,  too 
often,  without  incurring  the  active  repudiation  of  the  majority. 

Perhaps  the  dangerous  tendencies  in  America  of  which  De 
Tocqueville  spoke  are  at  the  present  time  "  the  excesses  of  De- 
mocracy " ;  though  perhaps  again  they  may  be  merely  the  general 
tendencies  of  the  age,  exhibited  here  a  little  earlier  or  more  freely 
because  of  the  liberty  of  action  Democracy  affords.  At  any  rate, 
there  has  never  been  a  day  in  the  history  of  the  country  when 
such  a  restraining  influence  as  he  attributed  to  the  lawyers  was 
so  much  needed  as  at  present.  Meanwhile  the  legal  profession, 
through  a  not  inconsiderable  number  of  its  members,  has  devel- 
oped into  one  of  the  active  means,  not  for  restraining  but  for  ac- 
tually furthiering  the  excesses;  and,  as  a  whole,  it  certainly  exerts 
now  a  less  conservative  and  restraining  influence  than  was  grate- 
fully recognized  in  our  earlier  history. 

When  John  Stuart  Mill  taught,  in  a  little  book  less  talked  about 
now  than  his  later  publications,  that  women  made  contributions 
to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge  and  consequent  progress  as  im- 
portant as  those  coming  from  men,  though  different  in  kind, 
being  apt  to  be  intuitional  rather  than  logical,  he  may  have  fur- 
nished a  hint  as  to  the  real  safeguard  against  social  disorders 
that  in  his  time  were  hardly  known.  If  the  conservative  influ- 
ence which  is  hereafter  to  protect  us  from  the  excesses  either  of 
Democracy  or  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  no  longer  to  be  surely 
and  always  found  in  the  old  quarter,  it  may  still  prove  that  we 
can  turn  for  it  to  a  class  with  higher  inspirations  and  keener 
moral  perceptions,  to  a  class  with  deeper  interest  in  the  outcome, 
and  capable  of  unquestionably  greater  influence,  whenever 
aroused  to  exercise  it.    It  may  prove,  in  fact,  that  we  can  look  to 


CONSERVATISM  OF  EDUCATED  WOMEN     5 

the  educated  women  of  the  country  rather  than  to  its  lawyers  for 
the  true  conservatism  in  principle,  in  methods  and  in  constant 
application  that  is  to  save  us  from  many  of  the  most  dangerous 
tendencies  of  the  time.  Hope,  then,  will  not  be  lost  for  the  future 
of  our  triumphant  Democracy  till  the  characteristic  excellencies  of 
educated  women  are  corrupted  or  destroyed. 

The  reasons  for  such  an  expectation  lie  in  human  nature  itself,  Conserva- 
and  in  that  female  ability  which  Mr.  Mill  demonstrated  for  such  JJ*"  "* 
contributions  to  human  knowledge  and  progress.    All  the  in-  womea 
stincts  of  the  educated  woman  are  toward  good  order  and  good 
morals  and  good  life;  all  her  interests  are  against  rash  experi- 
ments and  revolutionary  changes ;  the  character  alike  of  her  judg- 
ment, her  feelings  and  her  needs  gives  promise  of  sound  and  sane 
views  of  life  and  of  human  conduct.  Both  by  inherent  qualities  and 
by  acquired  relations,  the^  rightly  educated  woman  is  a  natural 
and  necessary  conservative.    With  her  mental  alertness  and  vivid 
perceptions,  she  can  never  be  a  drag  upon  the  machinery  of  human 
progress ;  but,  thanks  to  her  special  aptitudes,  she  may  always  be 
its  moderator  and  its  governor. 

This  at  least  is  clear,  that  the  Twentieth  Century  woman  has 
greater  opportunities  than  were  ever  given  to  human  creature  of 
her  kind  before,  in  the  eighty  centuries  of  the  world's  history  of 
which  we  are  supposed  to  have  some  records ;  that  she  has  been 
better  prepared  to  improve  them ;  and  that  she  is  more  peremp- 
torily called  to  the  work, — this  Twentieth  Century  woman  to  whom 
have  been  given  the  keys  of  knowledge,  which  are  becoming  al- 
most the  keys  of  life  and  death.  The  ferment  and  amazing  dis- 
covery and  development  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  did  not  end 
when  it  closed ;  —  they  could  be  but  the  hotbed  for  starting  the 
prodigious,  myriad-formed,  almost  infinite  growths  to  be  confi- 
dently expected  in  the  Twentieth.  If,  in  the  midst  of  these  teem- 
ing and  steaming  activities,  woman  now  possesses  the  real  power 
which  Mr.  Mill  attributed  to  her,  then  the  imperative  duty  which 
her  superior  moral  elevation,  her  nature  and  her  surroundings 
impose,  for  the  whole  term  of  her  existence  and  throughout  the 
whole  course  of  our  bewildering  progi'ess,  is  to  furnish  this  con- 
servative force  in  American  life,  which  two-thirds  of  a  century 
ago  De  Tocqueville  thought  already  necessary.  Her  Wisdom 
will  point  it  out  as  the  thing  to  do  next,  her  Virtue  will  shine  in 
doing  it.  Thus  the  subject  to  which  I  have  ventured  to  invite 
your  attention,  "  The  Thing  to  Do,"  rises  before  you,  attends  your 
incoming  and  your  outgoing,  and  henceforth  forever  entreats  and 
commands  you. 

lA 


6  THE  THING  TO  DO 

Loss  of  Of  specific  excesses  toward  which  our  Democratic  institutions 
Faith  and  ^^^  ^^  tending,  perhaps  we  do  not  need  now  to  speak  in  any- 
great  detail.  It  may  be  enough  to  recognize  that  the  American 
who  colonized  the  Atlantic  Coast  and  the  great  Middle  West, 
who  framed  the  Constitution,  started  the  Government,  developed 
the  country  under  it,  and  fought  a  gigantic  civil  war  to  preserve 
it,  is  not  the  American  who  leads  the  popular  movements  of  to- 
day. The  type  is  changing;  the  beliefs  are  changing,  and  the 
aims. 

He  is  neither  Puritan  any  longer,  nor  Cavalier.  He  may  out- 
wardly deny  the  decay  of  faith,  but  he  inwardly  feels  it.  Noth- 
ing is  more  noticeable  at  the  great  centres  of  population  and  of 
national  activity,  or  in  any  large  section  of  what  calls  itself,  and 
is  often  called,  our  best  society,  than  this  disappearance  of  the  old 
foundation  of  character  and  action ;  this  loss  of  profound,  endur- 
ing, restful  faith  in  anything.  It  is  a  laissez-aller  age ;  an  age  of 
loosening  anchors,  and  drifting  with  the  tide ;  of  taking  things 
as  they  are,  with  cordial  readiness  to  take  them  hereafter  as  they 
come ;  of  an  easy  indifference,  whose  universal  attitude  towards 
each  startling  departure  from  old  standards  is  "What  does  it 
matter,  anyway  I " —  an  age,  in  short,  marked  by  a  refined,  "  up- 
to-date  "  adaptation  of  the  old  Epicurean  idea  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  this  world  to  do  but  to  eat  and  drink  and  make  merry,  for 
to-morrow  we  die.  As  Omar,  prime  favorite  of  the  flower  of  this 
new  school,  has  sung : 

What  boots  it  to  repeat 
How  time  is  slipping  underneath  our  feet ; 
Unborn  To-morrow,  and  dead  Yesterday, 
Why  fret  about  them  if  To-day  be  sweet ! 

The  loss  of  faith  brings  us  by  a  short  cut  straight  to  the  loss  of 
purpose  in  life  —  of  any  purpose,  at  least,  beyond  purely  material 
ones.  To  those  who  need  money,  the  duty  of  getting  it  first  and 
above  anything  else  becomes  the  gospel  of  life.  To  those  who 
feel  the  need  of  position,  whether  in  society,  business  or  elsewhere, 
their  gospel  drives  them  to  all  means  within  the  law  to  attain 
that.  To  those  who  have  both  money  and  position  comes  the 
only  remaining  purpose  in  life,  that  of  using  them  for  an  exist- 
ence of  amusement  and  enjoyment.  Is  it  too  much  to  say  that 
never  before  in  our  history  have  such  aspirations  so  completely 
dominated  and  limited  such  large  classes  ? 

The  Madness      B^t  this  crazc  for  mere  amusement  and  enjoyment,  like  other 
of  Extremes   perverted  appetites,  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on.    The  amusement 


THE  MADNESS  OF  EXTREMES  7 

soon  becomes  wearisome,  the  enjoyment  soon  palls,  unless  con- 
stantly more  and  more  spectacular  and  bizarre.  Perpetual  change 
and  constantly  increasing  variety  of  extremes  seem  to  be  the  ever 
rising  price  of  keeping  amused.  One  never  is  for  long  where  one 
wants  to  be,  or  doing  what  one  desires ;  there  must  be  incessantly 
a  rushing  to  and  fro,  and  a  change  of  pursuits,  all  under  the 
glare  of  electric  lights  and  the  blare  of  brass  bands.  If  in  the 
country,  one  must  hasten  to  the  city,  where  something  is  going 
on;  if  in  the  city,  one  must  fly  to  the  country,  where  the  crowd  is 
not  so  mixed  and  where  pleasanter  house-parties  can  be  gath- 
ered ;  if  in  one's  own  land,  one  longs  for  the  boulevards  or  the 
Alps ;  if  abroad,  one  is  eager  to  try  the  new  steamer  back ;  if  at 
the  sea-shore,  one  wants  suddenly  to  know  what  the  mountains 
are  like,  and  can  find  amusement  only  in  going  to  see,  when 
clothed  in  leather  jackets,  protected  by  masks  and  goggles,  and 
powdered  with  dirt,  rushing  through  the  dusty  air  on  the  high- 
ways at  forty  or  fifty  miles  an  hour  in  a  Red  Devil,  and  leav- 
ing the  luckless  rustics  in  the  way  to  go  to  a  fiend  of  any  color 
they  like. 

Even  then  this  vehement  vacuity  is  not  amusing  unless  it  is 
talked  about.  One  must  be  forever  before  the  footlights,  and,  if 
possible,  in  the  centre  of  the  stage.  Privacy  is  deadly  dulness. 
Not  to  have  your  name  every  other  day  in  the  newspapers,  and 
especially  in  the  most  hopelessly  vulgar  and  inane  of  the  news- 
paper columns,  the  so-called  social  ones,  is  to  be  out  of  the  world, 
to  be  bored  to  death.  Not  to  see  every  intimate  fact  about  your- 
self or  your  friends  thrust  naked  and  shameless  under  the  public 
eye  is  to  feel  that  you  are  dropping  out  of  the  swim.  If  there  is  a 
steamer  that  has  raced  across  the  Atlantic  in  fifteen  minutes  less 
than  any  other,  you  suddenly  realize  that  nothing  is  going  on 
here,  and  you  must  immediately  cross  back  on  that  steamer.  If 
there  is  a  White  Ghost  that  has  flitted  over  crowded  country 
roads  half  a  mile  an  hour  faster  than  the  last  Red  Devil,  and  has 
caused  more  runaways  and  killed  one  or  two  more  people,  you 
will  be  leading  a  very  dull  life  till  you  have  gone  faster  in  that 
same  or  in  some  better  and  uglier  machine,  and  have  left  a  wider 
swath  of  disaster  and  terror  behind  you.  Even  then  the  amuse- 
ment is  stale  unless  the  papers  tell  that  you  broke  the  record,  if 
not  somebody's  neck  also,  print  your  portrait,  and  mention  who 
your  grandfather  was,  by  way  of  showing  how  proud  the  pre- 
sumably worthy  old  man  ought  to  be  of  his  hopeful,  goggle-eyed 
descendant. 

Gregariousness  and  glare  are  the  irredeemably  vulgar  notes  of 
it  all.    To  seek  enjoyment  within  yourself  and  your  own  circle, 


8  THE  THING  TO  DO 

in  resources  of  your  own,  and  without  a  fresh  flash-light  picture 
every  day,  becomes  unendurable.  A  country  residence  is  impos- 
sible unless  a  dozen  others,  "of  our  own  set,  you  know,"  are  within 
five  minutes'  call ;  and  even  then  it  is  slow  without  a  thronged 
race-track  at  hand.  Thus  Newport  rather  than  Biltmore  be- 
comes the  veneered  and  shiny  national  type  for  those  who  can, 
at  will,  command  either.  As  for  the  babes  that  must  struggle 
through  childhood  into  precocious  maturity  in  such  surround- 
ings, why,  they  are  to  live  in  this  world,  are  n't  they — not  in  the 
Happy  Valley  of  Easselas  ?  Why  should  n't  they  get  on  without 
rest  and  real  country  life,  as  well  as  their  parents  I 

Poiincai  If  loss  of  faith  and  loss  of  purpose  have  led  to  such  changes 
Pickieness  from  the  decorous  albeit  a  little  provincial  society  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  what  transformations  may  not  be  expected  from  the 
same  influences  in  our  political  life  I  Already  we  begin  to  note 
the  same  fever  for  variety  and  unreasoning  change.  We  know 
now  how  Aristides  was  banished  because  the  citizens  were  tired 
of  hearing  him  called  the  Just ;  we  have  more  than  once  given  in 
modern  phrases  the  same  old  Greek  reason  for  our  own  banish- 
ments :  "  Oh,  well,  they  've  been  in  long  enough ;  let 's  try  a 
change."  The  steady  persistence  in  policy  of  the  Fathers  and 
Founders  of  the  Eepublic  seems  disappearing,  and  the  political 
characteristics  displayed  are  becoming  noticeably  less  English, 
and  even  less  Northern.  "  You  are  as  fickle  as  the  French,  and 
as  fond  of  sudden  excitements,"  is  a  criticism  of  over-candid  ob- 
servers from  the  north  of  Europe  which  we  hear  with  increasing 
frequency;  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  of  late  we  do  show, 
oftener  than  could  be  desired,  sudden  and  irresponsible  popular 
movements  which  we  are  apt  to  look  for  in  the  Latin  rather  than 
the  Northern  races.  A  wave  of  excitement  sweeps  over  the  coun- 
try, and  throughout  whole  communities  the  very  best  and  most 
conscientious  of  our  people  are  stampeded  with  sudden  fear  of  Eu- 
ropean domination,  and  alarm  about  the  Pope  of  Rome,  if  we  do 
not  hurriedly  erect  legislative  dams  against  foreign  invasions  on 
our  Eastern  shores.  The  Know-Nothings  had  a  close  race  with 
the  Free-Soilers  for  first  place,  and  for  a  time  were  ahead, — seem- 
ing actually  about  to  succeed  in  making  hostility  to  the  foreigner 
rather  than  sympathy  with  the  slave  the  shibboleth  of  the  new 
national  party.  Within  my  own  experience  a  distinguished  offi- 
cial and  highly  honored  citizen  of  New  York  has  vehemently  ar- 
raigned me  for  neglect  of  duty,  in  my  own  modest  sphere,  in  not 
trying  to  arouse  the  people  against  the  peril  to  our  liberties  and 
the  alarming  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 


POLITICAL  FICKLENESS  9 

involved  in  the  creation  of  a  foreign  prince  in  this  country, — in 
the  person  of  Cardinal  Gibbons !  But  presently  the  wind  is  blow- 
ing from  the  exactly  opposite  quarter ;  sympathy  for  the  sweet 
Emerald  Isle  in  turn  overpowers  us ;  we  raise  money  by  the  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  are  hardly  dissuaded  from  raising  volun- 
teers also  for  the  Fenian  army,  and  shout  ourselves  hoarse  in 
pecuniary  and  rhetorical  efforts  to  force  on  a  friendly  nation  an 
acceptance  of  the  solution  we  think  best  for  her  most  perplexing 
domestic  problem.  Next  a  sudden  fear  of  Asiatic  competition 
stampedes  us ;  and  we  instantly  abandon,  as  to  Orientals  at  least, 
our  old  boast  that  our  land  is  the  home  of  the  oppressed  of  every 
clime,  the  land  of  opportunity  for  all  who  would  better  their  condi- 
tion. Straightway  Congress  is  busy  building  dams  on  our  Western 
coast  to  keep  the  waves  of  slant-eyed  invaders  out, while  our  people 
rush  into  excesses  against  those  who  are  in,  reaching  sometimes 
to  riot,  but  more  often  merely  to  such  refinements  of  cnielty  as 
cutting  off  their  pigtails  or  burning  down  their  joss-houses. 

A  cry  that  the  money  that  was  good  enough  for  us  should  be 
good  enough  for  our  foreign  debtors  carries  half  the  people  cap- 
tive; a  great  National  Convention  comes  near  nominating  the 
chief  advocate  of  this  notion  for  the  Presidency,  and  the  country 
is  on  the  verge  of  paying  the  National  Debt  in  greenbacks.  A 
few  years  later  a  rather  cheap  rhetorician  catches  the  fancy  of  an 
excited  assemblage  by  talking  about  crucifying  the  people  on  a 
cross  of  gold,  and  straightway  there  sweeps  over  the  land,  like  a 
prairie  fire,  a  wave  of  excitement  for  persuading  water  to  flow  up 
hill,  and  silver  to  be  as  good  as  gold  without  the  advice  or  con- 
sent of  any  other  nation  on  earth.  Next  we  plunge  into  munici- 
pal affairs ;  give  away  priceless  franchises  because  we  are  in  such 
a  hurry  we  can't  take  time  to  see  what  they  are  worth ;  borrow 
till  we  have  exhausted  the  limit,  and  then  mark  up  the  value  of 
our  property  in  order  to  be  able  to  borrow  more  upon  it,  and 
chuckle  over  every  fresh  million  of  debt  incurred,  as  if  this  were 
the  end  of  that  trouble.  We  turn  out  a  reform  Administration 
for  not  reforming  fast  enough,  and  install  Croker  and  Tammany 
to  improve  the  job.  We  grumble  that  the  town  has  been  too 
strait-laced,  rejoice  that  at  last  it  is  blissfuUy  wide  open,  then 
wake  up  to  find  it  intolerably  wide  open,  and  once  more  put  in  a 
reformer,  finally  threatening  to  turn  him  out  again  because  every- 
body that  voted  for  him  has  n't  in  the  first  year  got  everything 
he  wanted. 

For  a  long  time  we  itch  to  interfere  in  Spain's  trouble  with  her 
chief  colony,  and  at  last,  in  a  white  heat  over  the  explosion  of  a 
naval  vessel,  we  do  rush  into  war,  but  not  before  being  caught  in 

iB 


10  THE  THING  TO  DO 

the  ebb  of  the  same  tide  and  swept  by  it  into  the  sentimental 
declaration  that  we  will  never,  no  never,  permit  our  country  to 
reap,  from  this  expenditure  of  its  money  and  its  young  life,  such 
security  and  advantage  as  every  other  nation  which  ventures  on 
the  solemn  sacrifice  of  the  treasure  and  blood  of  its  people  has 
felt  bound  to  require  from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  ivas  bound 
to  require.  Next  the  whole  country  is  up  in  arms  in  another  gush 
of  sentiment  to  protest  that  instantly,  without  safeguards  of  any 
sort,  a  little  island  off  in  the  Atlantic,  more  than  a  fourth  of  the 
way  over  to  Africa,  must  be  given  admission  at  once  to  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  American  citizenship.  Presently  the  sen- 
timental wave  turns  the  other  way,  and  another  island,  nearer, 
larger,  far  more  important,  with  far  gi'eater  claims,  over  which 
we  have  asserted  a  species  of  protectorate  for  three-quarters  of  a 
century  and  which  we  profess  to  be  tenderly  guiding  into  the 
family  of  nations,  is  kept  waiting  for  months  and  years  for  help 
long  since  acknowledged  to  be  our  plain  duty.  Far  from  being 
a  mother  to  this  suffering  orphan  whom  we  have  ourselves  dragged 
to  our  door  and  dropped  helpless  there,  we  are  exhibiting  a  ca- 
pacity, colossal  as  our  strength,  for  being  a  stepmother. 

Next  we  forget  all  about  these  burning  issues,  put  them  behind 
us  as  if  they  had  never  existed,  and  plunge  pell-mell,  clergy,  edi- 
tors, laity  and  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  into  a  race  with 
the  politicians  for  the  favor  and  the  political  influence  of  the 
down-trodden  contract  coal-miners  who  were  only  getting  three 
dollars  a  day  and  had  proclaimed  against  free  labor  in  a  so-called 
free  country,  lest  competition  might  drive  them  to  work  for  this 
wage  more  than  six  or  seven  hours  a  day,  and  so  make  coal  cheaper 
for  the  multitude.  Thus,  between  our  own  meddling  and  the  dull 
inactivity  of  the  employers,  blindly  dreaming  that  it  will  soon 
blow  over,  we  prolong  the  industrial  paralysis  till  winter  is  at 
hand  and  the  President  himself  is  forced  to  intervene  in  an  irreg- 
ular and  unprecedented  way  to  save  us  from  a  national  calamity. 

One  day  we  go  wild  over  a  guest  because  he  is  the  brother  of 
an  Emperor;  the  next  we  are  in  a  pet  because  the  same  Emperor 
wants  to  collect  money  from  an  unwilling  debtor  who  does  n't  pay 
his  debts  to  us,  either.  One  day  we  scoff  at  European  opinion 
about  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  the  next  we  laugh  with  delight 
at  what  it  pleases  us  to  call  the  new  European  Monroe  Doctrine 
for  the  Persian  Gulf.  One  day  we  proclaim  Russia  as  our  dear- 
est friend,  and  fret  with  but  half-concealed  contempt  at  Chinese 
complaints  about  the  massacre  of  their  countrymen  in  Wyoming, 
or  Italian  complaints  about  similar  atrocities  in  Louisiana,  or 
foreign  comment  generally  on  our  burning  of  negroes  at  the  stake ; 


ONE  MAN  NOT  AS  GOOD  AS  ANOTHER    11 

and  the  next  day  we  are  demanding  that  our  Govornment  shall 
at  once  and  ofiBcially  serve  peremptory  notice  on  that  same  dear- 
est friend  at  St.  Petersburg  that  we  won't  stand  his  equally  wicked 
persecution  of  Jews  at  Kishineff  in  the  heart  of  Russia.  We  are 
bent  on  an  isthmus  canal  at  Nicaragua,  and  can  hardly  keep  our 
hands  off  our  ancient  ally  for  attempting  one  at  Panama ;  laugh 
loud  and  long  at  the  De  Lesseps  collapse  as  proof  of  all  we  have 
said  about  the  utter  impracticability  of  the  Panama  route,  then 
suddenly  turn  around,  buy  up  the  bankrupt,  abandon  the  Nica- 
ragua concern  and  set  out  to  finish  that  same  impracticable  and 
preposterous  Panama  scheme  ourselves. 

Thus  wave  after  wave  of  half-considered  opinion  sweeps  over 
the  country ;  we  flash  into  flames  of  sudden  excitement  which, 
fortunately,  for  the  most  part,  die  out  like  heat-lightning ;  feel 
equally  fit  to  flout  all  the  world's  experience,  solve  at  sight  all  its 
problems,  or  fight  all  creation  at  the  drop  of  a  hat;  and  are 
always  in  danger  of  going  off  at  half-cock  into  a  new  party  or 
out  of  it,  into  some  untried  policy  or  out  of  it,  into  some  mon- 
strous injustice  or  out  of  it,  into  war  or  out  of  it. 

A  graver  change,  amounting  to  a  distinct  degeneration  in  the  One  Man 
average  American  character,  may  be  a  further  consequence,  and  °"*  ** 
is  at  any  rate  a  further  accompaniment,  of  the  tendency  to  loss  of  Another 
faith  and  loss  of  purpose.    It  is  the  extravagant  notion,  never 
held  in  the  days  of  the  Fathers,  that  this  is  a  land  of  equality, 
and  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another.  It  has  never  been  a  land 
of  equality,  and  one  man  never  has  been  as  good  as  another,  and 
never  will  be,  in  this  country  or  any  other,  in  this  life  or  any 
other  —  till  the  just  God  turns  unjust,  and  the  creature  that  does 
ill  becomes  in  his  eyes  as  the  creature  that  does  well. 

What  is  true,  and  it  is  the  shining  glory  of  the  Fathers  to  have 
established  it,  is  that  this  is  a  land  where  all  men  are  on  a  par 
just  once  in  their  lives,  for  they  have  an  equal  start.  Each  man 
is  guaranteed  certain  fundamental  essentials  at  the  starting-post  — 
his  life,  his  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  in  his  own  way, 
so  long  as  he  respects  the  corresponding  rights  of  others.  Beyond 
that  it  is  a  fan*  field  and  no  favor ;  and  from  the  very  moment  of 
the  equal  start  some  draw  ahead  and  others  lag  behind.  The 
equality  has  disappeared  like  the  morning  mist  —  the  inequality 
that  lasts  to  the  end,  and  is  greater  here  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  is  the  inspiring  fruitage  of  those  blessed  Republican 
institutions  under  which  no  man  can  be  too  low  to  rise  to  the  top 
if  he  is  fit  for  it. 

But  the  delusion  of  equality  remains  and  poisons.  The  laggard 


12  THE  THING  TO  DO 

declares  he  is  just  as  good  as  the  man  that  has  outstripped  him, 
and  that  he  is  the  victim  of  a  monstrous  injustice  in  being  left 
behind.  The  spendthrift  finds  it  iniquitous,  since  one  man  is  as 
good  as  another,  that  he  should  be  poor  and  needy  while  the  fru- 
gal and  careful  neighbor  that  started  on  an  equal  level  with  him  is 
free  from  want.  The  idler  swaggers  up  to  his  employer  with  the 
declaration  that,  since  one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  it  is  an  im- 
position to  pay  him  any  less  than  the  industrious  workman  at 
his  side,  and  that  he  has  a  trades-union  at  hand  to  prove  and 
maintain  it  by  a  logic  you  can't  resist.  One  man  is  as  good  as 
another,  and  therefore,  it  is  such  an  outrage  to  deprive  a  man  of 
his  vote,  merely  because  he  has  been  a  thief  or  a  murderer,  that 
the  Governor  must  pardon  him  before  the  expiration  of  his  term 
in  the  penitentiary,  in  order  that  the  cloud  on  his  free  and  in- 
dependent American  citizenship  may  be  removed,  and  he  may 
resume  his  rightful  share  in  the  business  of  governing  the  country. 

This  temper  soon  carries  the  false  doctrine  of  equality  one  step 
further.  It  comes  next  that  since  one  man  is  just  as  good  as  an- 
other, if  the  other  does  n't  think  so,  he  must  be  made  to.  In  fact, 
if  he  does  not  agree  with  the  devotees  of  the  doctrine  at  a  time 
when  they  have  started  out  to  enforce  it  on  their  employer  or 
on  their  associates  or  on  the  community,  he  will  do  well  to  seek 
liberty  to  earn  his  living  in  some  land  of  despotism  —  the  home  of 
the  free  is  no  place  for  him  and  is  full  of  danger.  The  walking 
delegate  is  just  about  as  obliging  as  the  traditional  foreman  of 
the  fire-engine  who  said,  "  You  may  paint  de  machine  any  color 
you  please,  s'  long  's  you  paint  it  red."  You  may  do  as  you  like  in 
this  land  of  liberty,  so  long  as  you  do  what  our  Union  tells  you. 

But  let  us  be  fair  to  the  laboring  man,  and  even  to  his  mis- 
representative,  the  walking  delegate.  This  American  intolerance 
of  dissent  is  not  confined  to  the  Trades-Union.  The  powerful 
Trust  may  be  just  as  exacting  and  intolerant  till  its  demands 
have  once  been  successfully  challenged ;  and  it  has  not  at  times 
been  bashful  about  making  these  demands  on  legislatures,  on 
the  courts,  even  on  the  highest  departments  of  the  Government 
and  on  national  candidates.  It  is  not  bashful  at  this  moment  in 
"Wall  Street  about  making  them  upon  the  inevitable  candidates 
of  the  party  in  power.  The  party  boss  has  been  accused  of  the 
same  intolerance  of  dissent ;  the  party  machine  has  gone  nigh  to 
be  suspected ;  doctors  and  lawyers  and  bankers  have  small  room 
for  the  inconsiderate  man  who  dares  differ  on  what  they  think 
essentials  from  the  temporary  or  local  majority ;  the  intolerance 
of  dissent  has  even  been  said  to  have  reached  into  the  Church. 

An  acute  observer  has  traced  the  turbulence  of  French  history 


CARRYING  GOOD  THINGS  TO  EXCESS  13 

since  the  days  of  Mirabeau  to  a  lopsided  belief  in  their  Trinity, 
Liberte,  iSgalite,  Fraternite.  The  controlling  masses,  he  said, 
cared  very  little  for  Liberte,  and  hardly  more  for  Fraternite,  but 
had  a  consuming,  vitriolic  appetite  for  ^figalite.  And  so  it  came 
about  that  equality  under  the  Emperor,  First  or  Third,  was  better 
than  liberty  under  the  Citizen-King  or  under  the  Republic.  Our 
doctrine  that  one  man  is  just  as  good  as  another  is  carried  farther 
still  by  its  devotees  :  he  is  more  than  as  good  —  he  is  better ;  or,  as 
the  emancipated  negroes  loved  to  declaim  in  those  deplorable  re- 
construction days,  "  De  bottom  rail 's  on  top,  bress  de  Lawd."  So 
now  it  sometimes  appears  that  if  any  man  has  the  admitted 
power  to  rule,  it  is  the  ignorant  man,  the  idle  man,  the  vicious 
man.  To  him  nearly  every  worldly-wise  person  seems  to  think  it 
prudent  to  kowtow ;  while  the  other  kind  must  obey  or  else  be 
clubbed  or  dynamited  into  submission. 

In  such  circumstances  as  we  have  been  describing,  mere  noise,  carrying 
clamor,  tumult,  vociferous  demand,  becomes  a  social  and  political  Q®od  Things 
force  of  the  first  magnitude.  Under  its  impulse  the  soberest  and  *°  ^^" 
best  elements  of  the  community  are  not  infrequently  swept  into 
hasty  conclusions  which  are  afterwards  repented  at  leisure. 
Such,  to  take  one  single  example  out  of  many,  was  the  sudden 
conversion  of  nearly  everybody  to  the  notion  that  Arbitration  is 
the  most  certain  road  to  justice.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  question 
or  depreciate  the  admirable  workings  of  this  beneficent  device, 
when  both  sides  fairly  enter  into  it,  in  fields  to  which  it  is  adapted. 
But  the  sudden  conversion  I  speak  of  is  to  the  notion  that  it  is  in 
every  sudden  need  always  better  than  the  courts  and  a  cure-all 
for  every  ill.  In  consequence  of  the  general,  unhesitating  accept- 
ance of  this  notion,  if  one  side  to  a  dispute  is  ready  and  eager  for 
arbitration,  the  other  is  vehemently  censured  if  it  in  turn  hesi- 
tates for  an  instant  at  swallowing  the  nostrum.  The  old  ma- 
chinery of  justice  must  be  set  aside ;  the  time-honored  tribunals 
for  the  protection  of  individual  rights  and  the  adjustment  of  con- 
flicting interests  between  man  and  man,  gradually  evolved 
through  long  centuries  of  Anglo-Saxon  development,  are  pro- 
nounced too  slow  and  too  costly  and  too  uncertain ;  the  safe  and 
sure  thing  is  to  compel — for  nothing  short  of  compulsion  will 
satisfy  these  sudden  converts — to  compel  both  sides  to  appear 
before  a  new  tribunal  which  can  decide  offhand,  unhampered  by 
rules  of  procedure  or  technicalities  of  law,  according  to  intuition 
and  sense  and  feeling.  And  so  the  man  that  balks  at  arbitration 
has  lost  his  case  already  before  the  bar  of  that  Public  Opinion 
which  rules  the  country. 


14  THE  THING  TO  DO 

Who  does  not  see,  then,  the  special  advantage  this  up-to-date 
patent  medicine  for  producing  quick  justice  may  often  give  the 
less  deserving  side  f  When  the  Walking  Delegate,  that  new  and 
powerful  Peer  of  the  Realm,  has  n't  been  doing  much  for  a  week 
to  convince  his  Society  that  he  is  earning  its  pay,  he  has  only  to 
invent  some  new  demand  for  shorter  hours  or  more  frequent 
shifts  or  fewer  bricks  in  the  hod,  and  when  it  is  denied,  promptly 
call  for  an  arbitration.  Now  the  essence  of  an  arbitration,  the 
only  object  of  an  arbitration,  is  to  settle  the  thing,  settle  it  quick 
and  make  people  contented  again.  But  how  can  they  be  con- 
tented unless  they  get  at  least  some  part  of  what  they  claim  I  In 
ordinary  disputes  between  individuals  or  classes,  an  arbitration 
that  did  n't  give  something  to  both  sides  would  be  rare  indeed ; 
an  arbitration  that  doesn't  more  or  less  "split  the  difference" 
would  be  unusual.  So  the  natural  end  of  it  is  that  the  Walking 
Delegate  gains  the  approval  of  his  people  and  strengthens  his 
position  by  showing  that  he  has  earned  his  salary ;  his  society 
gains  something  out  of  his  new  demand,  where,  till  he  invented 
it,  nothing  had  been  expected  or  wanted  or  thought  of ;  and  the 
employer  gains  —  well,  he  gains  a  settlement  for  the  time  being, 
anyway,  till  the  Walking  Delegate  thinks  of  something  else. 

Exactly  the  same  results  may  be  expected  when  an  employer, 
being  in  the  wrong  in  a  dispute  with  his  workmen,  induces  them 
to  consent  to  an  arbitration,  excepting  that  then  you  have 
another  influence  coming  in  to  modify  the  outcome:  the  sym- 
pathy all  right-minded  men  instinctively  feel  for  the  weaker  side 
in  a  controversy.  Very  nearly  the  same  results  may  be  expected 
when  among  contending  capitalists  the  one  who  is  getting  and 
deserves  the  worst  of  it  calls  for  an  arbitration.  Very  nearly  the 
same  may  be  expected  when  a  nation  that  sets  up  and  adheres  long 
enough  to  a  preposterous  boundary  claim,  calls  for  an  arbitra- 
tion —  unless,  indeed,  as  in  a  recent  case,  the  nation  in  the  right 
is  wise  enough  to  get  exactly  half  the  arbitrators!  Otherwise 
the  unreasonable  claimant  can  never  be  worse  off  than  before, 
and  the  chances  are  in  favor  of  his  gaining  at  least  something  I 
No  wonder  arbitration,  with  aU  its  recognized  merits  and  its  benefi- 
cent successes,  has  come  to  be  held  at  a  premium  by  the  side  that 
is  in  the  wrong.  Starting  with  nothing,  that  side  must  generally 
come  out  with  something,  anyway,  to  the  good  I  For  the  side 
that  is  in  the  wrong,  therefore,  the  game  is  always  worth  trying. " 

The  Other       Here  I  must  bring  to  a  close  these  too  prolix  illustrations  of 

side ;  and    ^j^^  changing  temper  and  practice  of  our  people,  as  we  have  been 

drifting  out  of  sight  of  those  old  American  safeguards  of  Faith 


WHEEE  EDUCATED  WOMEN  CAN  FIRST  HELP     15 

and  Purpose.  But  let  no  hearer  for  one  moment  forget  that  there 
is  another  side  to  the  picture.  Admitting  all  faults  and  incon- 
sistencies and  hysterical  alternations  of  heat  and  cold,  our  people 
are  still  the  freest,  most  generous,  most  capable,  most  active  and 
daring,  our  country  is  still,  in  our  eyes,  the  best  the  sun  shines 
on.  But  we  should  be  less  its  admirers,  less  loyal  and  less  useful 
as  its  citizens,  if  we  did  not  face  the  known  facts  with  open  eyes. 
Remember,  too,  that  what  we  see  is  but  in  the  dawn  of  our  new 
century,  and  before  our  national  existence  has  as  yet  anywhere 
near  reached  the  span  the  Psalmist  assigned  for  two  human  lives. 
When  we  get  a  little  nearer  national  maturity,  and  when  the 
gigantic  forces  of  the  Twentieth  Century  are  really  under  full 
headway,  where  is  all  that  incessant,  restless  fever  of  change  to 
lead?  When  the  physical  and  moral  whirl  in  which  our  national 
character  is  taking  shape  becomes  still  greater ;  when  the  marvels 
of  the  past  half-century  have  become  the  commonplaces  or  even 
the  rejected  crudities  of  the  next ;  when  the  forces  of  steam  are 
obsolete  and  electricity  is  the  slowest  power  we  deal  with ;  and 
when  our  population,  instead  of  merely  eighty  millions,  approaches 
two  hundred  millions,  as  it  surely  must  long  before  the  end  of  the 
century ;  as  the  scientific  advances  which  even  such  an  age  will 
count  miraculous,  burst  upon  us,  what  is  the  poor  human  Ameri- 
can to  do,  in  his  present  fever  and  with  his  present  nerves,  but 
with  fivefold  greater  powers  placed  in  his  hands,  and  fivefold 
greater  attention  and  capacity  demanded  for  their  control  I  If, 
sixty  years  ago,  the  free  forces  and  rushing  advance  of  the 
Republic  urgently  needed  the  regulation  of  a  powerful  and  learned 
conservative  body,  who  can  overestimate  the  necessity  for  such 
service  now  I 

When  you  ask  how  it  is  to  be  rendered,  one  cannot  be  mistaken 
in  turning  first  to  those  priceless  qualities  in  any  sound  national 
life,  whose  tendency  to  decay  we  noted  at  the  outset.  Give  back 
to  us  our  Faith.  Give  back  to  us  a  serious  and  worthy  Purpose. 
Restore  sane  views  of  life,  of  our  own  relations  to  it,  and  of  our 
relations  to  those  who  share  it  with  us.  Moderation  in  our  con- 
ceit of  our  own  almightiness  will  surely  follow,  moderation  in  the 
intolerant  assertion  of  our  own  rights,  moderation  in  meddling 
with  the  rights  of  others,  some  tendency  to  thought  before  action, 
some  continuity  of  conduct  personal  and  public,  and  some  refer- 
ence of  policy  to  enduring  principle. 

Outside  the  immediate  and  inestimable  effect  on  the  family,  where  Edu- 
the  conservative  power  of  educated  women  will  naturally  show  c«ted  Womeo 
its  first,  and  perhaps  its  chief,  influence  in  the  next  greatest  "°  *'"*  "'^''' 


16  THE  THING  TO  DO 

among  the  forces  that  guide  the  world, — that  of  social  life.  They 
will  surely  help  to  check  its  degradation.  They  may  make  it 
regain  its  soothing  relaxation,  and  its  benign  stimulus  for  the 
best  in  every  one.  They  may  even  give  back  to  Society  the  in- 
spiration it  once  had  for  the  leaders  of  the  world's  work.  They 
will  certainly  correct  the  prevalent  vicious  conception  of  its  real 
scope.  They  will  reject  the  notion  that  it  is  a  sort  of  trade  to 
which  a  few  devote  themselves,  as  most  others  do  to  the  other 
pursuits  of  life ;  that  thus  there  are,  in  the  vulgar  phrase  of  the 
day,  society  women,  just  as  there  are  shopwomen  or  cleaning 
women,  and  that  each  class  must  stick  to  its  trade ; — that,  in  fact, 
what  is  called  our  best  Society  is  a  strictly  limited  sort  of  trades- 
union,  unfriendly  to  the  admission  of  apprentices  not  coming 
from  its  own  ranks,  and  that  it  is  an  imperative  necessity  for  out- 
siders with  social  aspirations  to  force  their  way  into  it  by  push 
and  notoriety,  trick  and  device,  if  they  would  avoid  social  extinc- 
tion !  From  this  degrading  conception  comes  the  constant  craze 
for  newspaper  publicity,  and  every  other  form  of  publicity;  from 
this  the  paltry  scheming,  the  vulgar  push,  the  endless  flattery 
and  insincerity  and  loss  of  self-respect  by  foolish  aspirants,  who 
seem  all  the  time  to  ignore  or  to  be  unconscious  of  the  blighting 
influence  in  the  glare  and  heat  and  dust  of  such  an  arena,  upon 
all  the  finer  qualities  that  make  woman  adorable  and  human 
life  attractive. 

If  the  conduct  of  the  so-called  inner  circles  of  Society  has 
sometimes  seemed  to  justify  this  brazen  uproar  at  their  gates,  so 
much  greater  the  demand  for  the  conservative  influence  and  the 
real  refinement  that  come  from  the  high  training  of  superior 
women.  When  other  ideals  are  cherished,  when  Faith  and  Pur- 
pose in  life  reassert  their  sway.  Society  will  look  for  its  leaders 
even  less  than  it  really  does  to-day  to  the  embellished  matrons 
still  friskily  playing  tomboy,  and  noisily  marshaling,  for  fresh 
extravagances  of  social  demeanor  and  amusement,  their  collec- 
tions of  dashing  young  centaurs  from  the  race-track  and  the 
hunting-field,  and  of  handsome  young  cigarette-smoking  experts 
from  the  bridge-table. 

When  these  higher  ideals  do  return,  the  powerful  influence  of 
educated  women  will  surely  array  as  never  before  the  best  of 
their  sex  in  compact,  resistless  phalanx  against  a  social  evil, 
alarming,  degrading,  and  demoralizing,  which  has  suddenly  be- 
come almost  too  common  to  provoke  surprise; — the  transforma- 
tion of  marriage  from  a  sacrament  of  God  into  a  thoughtless  and 
headlong  business  or  social  arrangement  to  be  dissolved  almost 
at  pleasure.    Six  hundred  and  fifty-four  thousand  persons  di- 


WHERE  EDUCATED  WOMEN  CAlt 'FIRST  HELP     17 

vorced  in  this  country  in  twenty  years,  and  those  not  the  last — 
such  is  the  deplorable  record  on  -which  Catholic  and  Protestant 
clergy  are  already  appealing  for  a  union  of  all  moral  agencies  to 
retard  this  downward  rush  of  the  multitude.* 

The  same  influence  should  help  resist  the  yet  more  common 
weakening  of  family  ties  and  destruction  of  family  life.  It  should 
correct,  at  the  origin  of  the  evil,  the  extraordinary  development  of 
nervous  excitability  that  accounts  for  so  much  of  our  fickleness 
of  view  and  instability  of  belief ;  for  the  frequent  outbui-sts  of 
general  turbulence  and  lawlessness  through  whole  zones  of  popu- 
lation ;  for  the  varied  and  incredible  character  of  the  crimes,  for 
the  amazing  publicity  which  attends  them,  and  the  ready  imi- 
tation which  the  wide  knowledge  of  every  new  crime  often 
stimulates. 

Perhaps  the  same  influence  may  even  penetrate  citadels  far  bet- 
ter entrenched, —  those  of  evils  that  come  from  the  ill-judged  ex- 
cesses of  the  best  of  people.  It  may  possibly  infuse  moderation 
into  our  new  and  admirable  devotion  to  athletics,  and  rescue  us 
from  those  vagaries  of  Sport  run  mad  that  have  made  the  foot- 
ball teacher  more  important  in  our  universities  than  the  Professor 
of  Chemistry  or  of  Philosophy,  and  the  record  of  the  cinder-track 
the  essential  thing  rather  than  the  baccalaureate  degree. 

Harder  task  yet,  it  may  restore  sanity  to  our  Charity  run  mad ; 
may  teach  us  the  infinite  harm  that  lurks  in  our  lazy  way  of  rid- 
ding ourselves  of  each  casual  beggar  with  a  careless  quarter 
instead  of  a  careful  inquiry ;  and  may  even,  after  a  time,  stop 
the  premium  we  put  upon  crime  and  crankiness  when  we  build 
palaces  for  our  lunatics  and  our  criminals,  and  sustain  them  in 
these  establishments  in  a  comfort  and  even  luxury  far  beyond  the 
average  of  what  many  taxpayers  who  meet  the  bills  can  afford  for 
themselves.  Under  your  guidance  the  moderate  conclusion  may, 
in  fact,  be  reached  that  even  for  sweet  Charity's  sake  the  upright, 
industrious  New  York  farmer  or  mechanic  or  shopkeeper  is  not 

*  The  corresponding  secretary  of  the  National  League  for  the  Protection  of  the 
Family,  the  Rev.  Samuel  W.  Dike,  of  Auburndale,  Mass.,  published  a  letter  on  June 
16  referring  to  newspaper  reports  of  this  remark.    He  said: 

"  This  reference  to  the  increase  and  extent  of  divorce  in  this  country  has  attracted 
much  attention.  But  some  of  the  newspapers  have  erred  in  the  statistics  given.  For 
it  was  not  'in  the  last  twenty  years'  that  there  were  328,716  divorces  granted  in  the 


United  States,  but  in  the  twenty  vears  1867-1886.  These  are  from  'The  Report  on 
Marriage  and  Divorce  in  the  United  States  and  Europe,'  p.  1074,  made  by  the  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  in  1889.    This  report  was  secured  cniefly  through  the  efforts  of  the 


National  League  for  the  Protection  of  the  Family.  The  league  has  been  trying  of  late 
to  have  a  further  investigation  ordered  by  Congress,  to  bring  the  report  of  1889  down 
to  date.    That  report  passed  through  three  or  four  editions,  and  is  now  out  of  print. 

"For  the  last  twenty  years,  judging  from  the  figures  of  the  few  States  whicn  supply 
them  annually,  the  number  of  divorces  must  be  much  larger  thtrn  for  the  period  of 


1867-1886.    For  example,  Ohio  granted  1809  in  1886,  and  3217  in  1889.    Michigan  had 
1339  in  1886  and  2418  in  1900.    Indiana  granted  1655  in  1886,  and  no  less  than  469"  " 
1900,  more  than  three  times  as  many  as  tnere  were  in  1882,  or  in  any  earlier  year." 


18  THE-  THING  TO  DO 

bound  to  house  and  feed  the  crank  and  the  criminal  better  than 
he  can  the  children  of  his  loins  and  the  wife  of  his  bosom. 

Are  the  burdens  thus  laid  out  for  the  conservative  and  moder- 
ating influence  of  the  educated  women  of  the  land  too  weighty 
to  be  borne  ?  I  do  not  believe  it.  I  am  full  of  good  hope  for  the 
future  —  more  hopeful  to-night  than  before  I  saw  the  late  work 
of  Vassar,  more  hopeful  at  every  addition  to  the  splendid  array 
of  its  followers,  Smith,  Wellesley,  Bryn  Mawr,  Barnard,  Radcliffe, 
and  the  rest,  with  which  our  country  now  leads  the  world  in  the 
advanced  education  of  women. 

But  that  you  may  not  fall  short  of  the  full  measure  of  your 
high  capacities  and  still  higher  calling,  let  me  ask  your  attention 
to  a  fact,  and  put  to  you  a  question  about  it.  It  is  a  fact,  almost  a 
commonplace, — at  any  rate,  it  is  a  fact  which  I  venture  to  affirm, 
and  believe  to  be  beyond  intelligent  contradiction, — that  the  young 
ladies  here  at  eighteen  average  higher  than  any  corresponding 
body  of  boys  at  the  same  age  in  any  corresponding  institution. 
My  question  is.  How  will  it  be  at  twenty-eight  ?  On  your  answer 
to  that  question  depends  our  hope  that  the  educated  women  of 
the  country  may  furnish  the  conservative  force  for  our  land 
which  the  English  philosopher  led  us  to  expect  and  the  French- 
man to  see  that  we  needed. 

Is  it  not  the  frequent  experience  that  from  the  moment  of 
entering  society  the  girl  almost  stands  stiU, —  is,  at  least,  surely 
and  generally  passed  by  the  boy, — and  that  in  maturity  and  mid- 
dle life  the  relative  positions  are  apt  to  be  reversed  T  The  ques- 
tion is  not  raised  with  any  thought  of  suggesting  competition. 
Among  all  the  disagreeable  things  brought  forward  by  the  new 
school,  the  most  hateful  is  this  thought  of  rivalry  between  the 
sexes,  or  of  any  necessary  or  natural  antagonism  of  interests. 
My  closing  suggestion,  then,  with  reference  to  the  opportunities 
before  you,  and  the  country's  need  of  you,  is,  not  the  duty  of 
rivalry,  but  the  duty  of  growth.  For,  never  forget,  it  was 
merely  of  the  body,  not  of  the  intellectual  or  spiritual  man,  the 
declaration  was  made  that  you  cannot  by  taking  thought  add  one 
cubit  to  your  stature.  When  a  tree  ceases  to  grow,  your  science 
teaches  you  that  it  should  be  harvested.  When  the  sun  ceases 
to  rise,  its  shadows  fall  mournfully  eastward  and  the  day  is  surely 
drawing  to  its  close.  When  you  cease  to  grow,  you  have  already 
begun  to  decay.  Grow,  then,  while  you  live, — grow  to  the  full 
height  of  the  duties  we  have  seen.  The  land  never  needed  you 
as  it  does  to-day ;  you  will  never  see  a  day  in  which  it  will  not 
need  you  more  and  more. 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

OVERDUE.  °''    "^"^    SEVENTH     DAY 


LD  21-95m  7,'37 


